Part 3
Background to language learning
Unit 17 Practice
activities and tasks for language and skills development
In this unit I learn some activities and tasks designed to give learners
opportunities to practice and extend their use of language, such as new
vocabulary, functional exponents
or grammatical structures, or of the subskills
of reading, listening, speaking or writing. There are many different
kinds of activities and tasks with different names and different uses.
Firstly, controlled activities give students
repeated practice in accuracy
and the form of language, and
allow them to make few mistakes. They are mostly used to guide students in using the form of target language. Like copying words or sentences, jazz chants,
and drills. On the other hand, free activities, allow
students to use whatever language they wish in order to complete a task. The teacher
may not be able to predict
what language the student will use, and so can`t use these activities to give
practice in specific language.
Finally, between controlled and free activities are freer activities in which
the teacher can predict to some extent what language the student will need to
use. Like role-plays, information-gap
activities, sentence completion, gap-fills, and surveys.
Secondly, there are also many activities and
tasks that are commonly used to develop reading and listening skills. These can`t
be divided into controlled, freer and free as they practice receptive, not
productive, skills. Some subskill like reading for gist, listening for specific
information, reading for detail, cohesion, listening for specific information,
reading for specific information or detail, listening for specific information
or detail.
Finally, when selecting activities for practicing
and developing language it is up to the teacher to decide whether to do a
controlled practice, freer practice or free activity, or an activity that
focuses on accuracy or on communication. The choice will depend on student´s
needs and preferences. We can see that these activities can differ in several
ways: the skill or subskill they focus on.
Key words: tasks,
functional exponents, subskills, accuracy, form, guide, target language, drills,
predict, specific, role-plays, information-gap activities.
Jesyhd, H. (2012,
May, 18), Unit 17: Practice activities and tasks for language and skills
development. Retrieved from.
University of Cambridge ESOL Examination, (2009) Types of
activities and tasks for language and skills Retrieved from
Very good job Gaby!
ResponderBorrarI like your reflection but the most I like is the video, though it is only focusing on reading comprehension activities the speaker is very profound and explicit.
I like it a lot!
Dear Gabriela,
ResponderBorrarI really enjoyed reading your article because I consider that the controlled practice is a stage in a lesson where learners practise new language in a limited form. It can be compared to free practice, which involves learners producing language using the target content freely.
Great Job,
Good job
ResponderBorrarYour reflection mentioned the most important aspects from this unit which as future teachers we need to take into account. In order to use the proper activities which help students to keep motivated in the class.